Sunday

I forgot that the starts of races here smell like an old locker-room. That was the first thing that took me back to high school cross country: the overpowering surge of "Icy Hot" in my nostrils every time I took a breath. Wow.

And of course they were playing the Rocky theme. Over and over again. Our coaches used to make motivational tapes for us and there was Rocky, every year, prominently located within the first 5 songs. Honestly, they were interspersing Rocky with some song about a girl kissing a girl, which I thought was pretty funny. I wondered how many people packed onto the road could understand what the song was about. But it was catchy and had a nice beat, so I bounced around to it to keep warm and tried not to choke on the smell of Ben-gay.

Once again, there were no waves. However, there were "pacers" who were each carrying a huge yellow balloon that listed their pace. For example, the first balloon said 3:30 or something crazy like that (this is pace per kilometer, lovely States readers). But, in true Latin style, the 6:00 pacer balloon was lined up in the starting area way behind the 7:00 balloon. Of course the whole idea is that they line up in order, and the runners arrange themselves around what they know their pace to be. Excellent plan, right? I thought so too, until, standing beside the 6:00 balloon guy, I looked back and saw a 4:00 balloon. Whatever. We'll just run.

Nike's fun little race provided a nice technical running shirt as the race shirt. This shirt was also our race number, eliminating the search for safety pins. Genius! And we were a sea of red which looks super cool when you're on a long stretch of road and you can see way ahead of you. Everybody looked the same. Except for the poachers, of course. But some of them tried to match and wore red t-shirts, which I thought was cute. Everyone knows they won't be pulled off the course, but I noted the effort and appreciated.

After the hand-sweat grab-fest that was Ultimas Noticias 15k, I chose to skip the water and single cooler Gatorade stops. I run this distance all the time without drinking and it's cold and humid here. No water needed.

As far as how I did, well, I was wearing a chip so didn't think too much of it when I crossed the start line a full 4 minutes after the start. But Nike has my time as though I started at the gun--to which, I ask, why the chip? Whatever. For all intents and purposes, my time was 57 minutes. I felt good and consistent and pretty strong the whole time, and after all the Rocky fanfare, I was feeling quite high and light, flashing back to the good ole days. I was worried I wouldn't be able to break an hour because I have not run this distance in well over a month. So I decided I'm happy with how it went. It helped that I didn't have to come home with ketchup and actually got a Nutri-Grain bar in my goodie sack which I promptly ate.

Our race began at 7:30. By 9 I was back home and getting back in the bed to snuggle with my little family and dream about my plan of attack for the coming months.